


Axis Mundi

by SabriBlues



Category: Naruto
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Multi, POV Female Character, Romance, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, everyone is touchstarved, mostly just me indulging in romantic fantasies, not even sure if the plot makes sense, nothing too explicit but it gets uncomfortable for the ofc, she's also underage in some, some cursing i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 06:41:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29006223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SabriBlues/pseuds/SabriBlues
Summary: They say the apple never falls too far from the tree. I can only hope that's false, because you see, my father is not very well liked around here. I don't have the luxury of a clear past, a clean slate for a new life to begin. But as long as nobody knows, it's the same thing, right?Daughter of the least favored of the Sannin, Mitsuko will have to find a life of her own, with everything it entails.
Relationships: Hatake Kakashi/Original Female Character(s), OFC & Itachi, OFC & Naruto, OFC & Sakura, OFC & Sasuke
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	1. Prologue

  


He left me in a small town, not far from the Hidden Village of the Mist. At the time I didn’t know, but it was quite famous for being… a place of many pleasures.

Bars, gambling houses, brothels… any sort of illegal activity could be found there, where passing men —mostly those from the shinobi life— could find ‘release’ from their urges in the midst of the war.

I was not sure why Father decided to leave me there, but I could only assume he chose the hardest place to thrive in as another one of his ‘tests’.

He had woken me up that night, when everyone was soundly asleep except for some of his men, telling me to get dressed —something I would later see as a small mercy.

The Moon was high up in the sky, still not full enough to bring much light to our surroindings, the sounds of cicadas echoing in the air, muffling our steps and the ruffling of our clothes as we moved.

Rubbing my eyes with the hand that was not wrapped around his, I watched as he lured us deeper and deeper out of the forest.

“Otou-sama, where are we going?” I asked, only met by silence.

I can’t remember for how long we walked, could have been minutes, could have been hours.

He only slowed down once we were on a strange looking town, barely keeping me from stumbling once more against the barely visible rocky ground.

Men were passed out on the floor, curled around empty bottles, some of them still awake and walking in crooked lines, slurring unintelligible words, the stench of their breaths nearly making me gag even from afar.

Women stood by the side of doors, their faces pale and clad with makeup, more often than not smeared as they took long drags out of the cigarettes in their hands, lips pulled into toothy grins, but their eyes telling a completely different tale.

A booming laugh, followed by shouted words erupted out of a building, eliciting a small whimper from my lips as my head turned towards the light seeping out of the windows and the open door, sounds of a brawl and broken glasses blasting shortly after.

I dug my heels against the floor, frozen in place, scared both by the noise around us and my father’s silence, the latter not seeming to be even bothered as he dragged me effortlessly by the hand.

He slowed down his pace once we reached an alleyway, fear spreading at the pit of my stomach like poison, sending a jolt of energy right to my legs, which felt both curiously numb and tingling. This time I sunk the back of my feet decisively enough for him to stop, tilting his head towards me, his eyes gleaming viciously against the darkness around us, a more vibrant tone than mine, but still similar enough to be a ghostly reminder of mine.

Father let out a soft sound.

“I wouldn’t kill you, my own blood,” he soothed, kneeling before me and cupping my cheek with a pale, cold hand, a gentle mask etched onto his features, one I knew he could rip it off in the blink of an eye. “However, you have proven to be…weak.”

“K-kill me?” I murmured, my knees trembling as his features became stony.

His grip lowered and tightened, raising my chin with both fingers, causing me to flinch, eliciting despise upon his eyes, thin lips shifting downwards.

"Perhaps the wilderness will make you strong.” He mused, letting a disappointed sound from the back of his throat as his fingers slid from my chin, his free hand now placing something sharp and cold between both of mine, engulfed by his.

A kunai.

I shook my head uncontrollably, tears leaking out of my eyes as he stood up, the reality of it all sinking like a building about to collapse right on top of me.

What would I do?

 _I could trail after him_ , I thought. _Even in the dark, it shouldn’t be that hard if I try enough._

The face of one of the drunken men laying in the dirt flashed before my eyes, causing my resolve to crumble just enough to make the walls of the alley close around me.

Cruising through town alone would be quite a feat. One I probably wouldn’t come out of unharmed. Panic finished taking control of my body, my small hands shooting up to grip the fabric of his clothes.

“No, Otou-sama, please—”

“I’m not your father,” he seethed, his gaze fixed on mine, nothing but disgust in it. “Were it not for the few gifts you inherited, or those cursed eyes, I would have believed your mother to be unfaithful.”

He quietened for a moment, seeming to be deep in thought.

“But that’s it, isn’t it?” He mused, turning his back to me. “You have more of her in you than you’ll ever have of me.”

His words stung like a slap, my eyes itching and my vision blurring, the burning feeling on my chest making me stumble backwards.

“If you do survive, come find me, I will accept you back,” he said, tilting his head, almost stepping out of the alleyway before coming to a sudden halt.

“And Mitsuko,” he called, this time keeping his back to me, letting out a flare of chakra that made my knees buckle beneath its force, the pressure on my head becoming almost unbearable. “If you try to follow me, I will kill you.


	2. Options

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be mentions of possible sexual assault and bothersome men in this chapter, but nothing very explicit :)

_Don’t let others get you into their hands; to belong to oneself_ _—that is the whole thing in life._

_Ivan Turgenev_

Soon enough, I learned what kind of town I was left in. 

I lived in the streets, learning to cut wandering hands, learning where to sleep and where not to, who I should avoid and who had a kind enough hand to offer. 

At first, I refused to leave the alleyway my father had left me in, hoping, perhaps foolishly, that he would change his mind and come back for me. 

After some days, the nagging drunkards and wandering rats grew to be unbearable enough for me to try my luck in the woods on the outside of town, climbing the tallest trees and using the thickest branches at the top at night, always making sure to sleep on my back, one leg on each side of the branch to keep myself from falling. 

I mainly stayed in the woods, mostly feeling sorry for myself, occasionally going into town when the hunger was too much to bear. I lived off my own and other’s pity until pity wasn’t there, and then I decided I was done.

I was fairly good at hunting, but my aim with a kunai wasn’t as good as Anko’s, who had often taken upon herself the task of hunting when we were left on our own, whereas I would skin whatever she hunted, cooking it with anything we had at our disposal. 

But I wasn't the only one who learned with time, animals soon came to remember which spots of the woods were my favorite for hunting, until each time I had to go deeper and deeper into the forest. 

Which terrified me. 

This was a town where soldiers came and left, which made the possibility of running into one of them, or worse yet: a group, very real. 

I wasn’t sure what I wanted out of life, but this sure as hell wasn’t it.

I needed to leave this town. I could take my father on his word, trace him and make him take me back. Even if I didn’t have the slightest idea of where to begin to pursue someone as untraceable as him. 

Still…

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to go back, either. 

He had said it himself, there was nothing of him in me. I wasn’t as strong or determined as Anko. I was quick on my feet and decently agile, but I lacked the killing intent. The thought of ending someone’s life…it made my stomach churn. 

It was against everything I had been taught, against my own nature.

Defending myself was one thing but taking the initiative to hurt someone…that was something I didn’t have in me.

I even had to turn my head when snapping an animal’s neck. And that was to _survive_.

I shook my head, pulling myself out of trains of thought that weren’t useful in my current situation. 

I might not have known many things, but I was sure of my next step.

I was going to get a job.

Easier said than done.

Everywhere I went, people ran their gazes through my dirty clothes with disgust masked by pity, shaking their heads, muttering apologies or excuses and closing their doors without a second look.

I had tried to make myself presentable, washing my face on the river that cursed through the forest, not daring to wash my clothes since I had nothing else to wear while doing so, not to mention my fear of catching a cold, or worse, a man running into me while I had no clothes on.

Walking out of the last place I had deemed worth taking a chance, and receiving the same reaction and apologetic response pretty much everyone else had given me, I decided to head back to the forest, kicking the pebbles on my way, something I would have never dared to do when accompanied by my father.

It irked him. 

My resolve felt dwarfed by my current situation, like a bug under the penetrating lens of a microscope, examined and deemed unworthy of any further interest. 

My train of thought was brought to a halt when my eyes caught sight of a fruit post, the few apples on it mocking me with the prices written under their wooden boxes, skyrocketing because of the lack of crops that had plagued the land ever since I could remember. 

I guessed war was no good for farmers. Men went away to fight; fields were destroyed, women were left to fend for themselves. It was hardly an easy business.

A defeated sigh left my lips as I readied myself to turn and perhaps try my luck once more in the forest, the pressing cold of my kunai held by my obi suddenly burning against the skin of my back. 

There was nothing I could pay for with the few coins some compassionate shop owners had given me.

“You may take one, child.” 

When I raised my gaze, I was met with a wrinkled face, adorned by piercing dark eyes, with an equally wrinkly hand offering me the biggest apple on the stack.

For a moment all I could do was freeze, wondering if this was some kind of cruel joke where she would snatch the fruit back when I extended my hand to grab it. 

She gave me a smile with a few missing teeth, prompting me to take it.

“Go on,” she encouraged, her rough voice softening.

With a deep bow, I accepted the generous gift, watching her wearily even after having the apple cradled between my hands. 

“Thank you,” I murmured, clutching it to my chest with care, my mouth watering just from imagining the taste.

The woman laughed good-naturedly.

“No need to thank me, girl,” she dismissed, sitting on an old wooden stool, gesturing for me to come closer with her hand.

Not too happy about it, but driven by gratitude, I sat on the floor beside her, then taking a big bite off my apple, the sweet taste filling my mouth almost heavenly, fresher than anything I had tasted in what felt like forever. 

Still, I forced myself to slow down. If I ate it too quickly, I would be hungrier afterwards.

“What’s your name?” She asked.

I froze in my place, the apple halfway to my mouth. 

Should I make one up?

It felt a bit paranoid to do that, considering there was no reason anyone would be aiming to hurt me. No one except Anko knew who my father was. And yet...

“Cho,” I lied.

“Pleased to meet you, Cho. I am Akiko,” she replied, unfazed by my reticence to answer, her eyes sharpening on me, drifting from my face to my attire, and I had the urge to hide. “I see you’ve been looking for a job.”

I gave her a tense nod, suspicion rising within me as I kept my gaze trained on my apple, some of my appetite seeming to leave me.

“You missed a place, though.”

That did capture my attention, but it did nothing to ease the tangled knot at the pit of my stomach.

“Really? Where?” I asked, distrust leaking out of my words. 

An embarrassed wince tugged at my features at her raised eyebrows, heat rising to my cheeks.

“Sorry,” I lowered my eyes to the apple clutched in my hand.

She seemed to forgive me easily, guided by her low chuckle.

“As I was saying, you forgot to go somewhere,” she continued, eyeing me in an almost calculating manner. “Somewhere beautiful girls with no coin always end up in.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my place, having a good hunch as to what place she was talking about, the apple suddenly tasting sour in my mouth. 

Her eyes shifted to a building in the distance, and I followed her gaze.

The town’s brothel.

Anger boiled at the pit of my stomach with full force, fueled by shame. 

My hand itched to throw the suddenly tasteless apple at her feet, but my hunger was stronger than my pride.

“No.” Was my only response as I bounced to my feet, shaking my head. “Thank you for the apple,” I mumbled, giving her a hasty bow , tuckeing it close to my chest.

“If you change your mind you know where to find me,” she called after me.

I ran away.


	3. Choices

_Little words can mean death or life sometimes._

“ _Human_ ,” a familiar yet dreaded voice purred, echoing against the abyss, the water beneath my feet swirling in strange motions, almost as if it were drawn to it. 

I still couldn’t tell if it belonged to a male or a female, but I would have gambled on the latter.

I didn’t reply, instead surveying the infinite darkness before me, extending into infinity. Once again, not really something new, but still as unsettling as the first day. The only thing that could be even more eerie than that was the absolute silence around me, not a single sound to be heard besides my quiet steps above the water.

It had taken me some time to realize I didn’t need to channel chakra into my feet in order to do so, just having to think about doing it to be able to stand above the fragile surface. 

I still remembered the sensation of falling into the freezing water, all air being sucked out of my lungs, my body heavy as lead as it plummeted into the bottomless abyss.

A shiver ran down my spine at the memory, quickly shaped into deathlike stillness as the water’s surface tension fractured, a colossal head erupting from underneath it, its alabaster scales reflecting the dim light. 

Two slit pupils bore straight into me, swimming amongst amber colored irises, not much unlike mine as a bifid tongue poked in and out in less than a blink.

“ _Still freezing to death in the forest, I see,_ ” she commented, an undertone of amusement in her voice, as if my survival was more of a source for her entertainment rather than an actual issue.

“It’s not like I have a choice,” I murmured, crossing my arms, stifling a pout perhaps a second too late. 

It had been a while since the last time we had ‘talked’, if that’s what it could be called. Ever since my father’s abandonment, she had been curiously absent.

I had told no one about her, not even my mother. She had always felt like something too strange to share with anyone else.

Her body swirled around me, not creating the tiniest ripple despite its enormity, scales the size of my forearm gliding beneath my feet without breaking through the surface.

“ _Are you sure about that, midget?_ ” This time she was clearly taunting me, a dangerous gleam upon those deathly eyes. 

A memory of my father telling me that you could tell how dangerous a snake was just from its pupils and its snout played almost idly at the back of my mind. This creature would have definitely made it to the top of that list without even breaking a sweat.

Still, any train of thought crashed at the realization of what her words implied.

“No.” I grated the words out of my mouth, not even needing to think about it for a second, my hands clenching at my sides. I wouldn’t go there even if it was the last place on earth.

Her gaze sharpened, almost as if she could hear my every thought, seeming to accept my silent challenge.

“ _No?_ _You rather be meat for worms, then?_ ” She seethed, quickening the pace of her movements. “ _Or better yet, a tender, young mare for a drunkard?_ ” 

Bile rose at the back of my throat, the acid taste making me grind my teeth until it hurt my jaw.

“Don’t be crude.”

“ _Life is nothing but crude. Better wake up now._ ”

And with that, a pair of sharp fangs in an impossibly open jaw lunged at me, darkness swallowing my vision. 

  
  


I opened my eyes with a scream, nearly falling off the thick branch I had been sleeping in, making a hasty maneuver that left me hanging from the back of my bent knees for a few seconds, the muscles aching from the cold and lack of use.

 _Seriously?_ I sent the thought intently inside my head, but was met only by silence.

I sighed. 

Back to the silent treatment, it was.

It had been two weeks since the incident with the old lady in the apple stall. Food was scarce, nights were getting colder and colder, and it felt like every animal in the forest was hiding just to mock me. 

Men had become especially insufferable, for they had found my usual sleeping spot in the forest and even though they couldn’t climb trees as easily as me, enjoyed their nights taunting me from its roots, throwing empty bottles and sneering yellowed teeth at me, disgusting words uttered under stenching breaths.

I hated them.

Maybe I was just losing my patience.

Winter was close. If I didn’t find a refuge soon, I would _freeze to death_ , just as _she_ had put oh-so-well in my last dream. 

Or was it a nightmare? I couldn’t tell.

 _If you change your mind you know where to find me._ Those words echoed in my head like a sick chant, thrumming against my temples with the intensity of a hammer beating a nail in.

I shut my eyes tightly, like it could protect me from seeing the horrible truth. 

Kami, I didn’t want to do this. I really didn’t want to do this.

 _You’re too…weak._ Another voice chimed in.

I made a choice.

Tired and starving, I had gone to the fruit post once again, ready to crawl back to her, feeling like a hypocrite, considering what I had said not even an hour ago. 

Just her smile when she saw me was enough for nausea to rise beneath my tongue, making me want to run back to my lonely branch in the forest. 

I forced my feet to remain nailed to the floor.

“I changed my mind.”

After that, everything felt like a blur. 

Akiko took me to another woman’s house, where they gave me a bath, scrubbing all the dirt until my skin was pink and sore, washing and untangling the painful knots that had formed on my hair after so many weeks, brushing and styling it afterwards. 

They gave me soup, heavenly warm, enough for sleepiness to crawl into my bones, but not enough to keep the anxiety of what I was about to do at bay.

Dressed in a beautiful midnight blue kimono, which was a bit big for me, Akiko led me to the pleasure quarter, passing the guards like she owned the place.

I briefly wondered if she did, only to be proven wrong as soon as she spoke. 

“The owner’s name is Sara, Sara-sama for you. You will not utter a single word unless she speaks directly to you, understood?” 

I nodded.

“Good.” Her lips curved in a tight-lipped smile. “I knew you were a quiet one.” 

The kind old lady act had soon disappeared from the moment I had returned to her fruit post, shifting into a cold and direct woman, her eyes razor sharp and focused, as if they could only see what they deemed relevant to her goal.

I thought she would have made a wonderful shinobi.

Only a few minutes later, two fingers with red-painted nails gripped my chin with slight pressure, shifting my face to their taste. 

Sara was as beautiful as intimidating. She was probably in her thirties, which was old for a woman of pleasure, but didn’t take away any of her beauty, with wide dark eyes, like two obsidian stones placed upon her rounded face, adorned by thick, long lashes, casting shadows upon her cheekbones. 

Locks of pitch black fell silkily down her back, creating a high contrast with her pale face, making soft noises when they grazed the silk of her kimono.

I thought that if the goddess of night had a shape it would be hers.

“She is indeed beautiful, Akiko,” she recognized, briefly letting her gaze wander from me to the woman that had brought me in.

My body tensed when she let out a sound of disapproval, her eye catching on the dark bruise on my cheekbone from a fight against another handsy man, matching the one on my jaw. I had been trying to hunt until late that day, an unadvisable thing to do, but hunger could be stronger than logic at times. 

_He won’t be using something far more precious for some time though_ , I thought, suppressing a satisfied smirk.

“But she’s all black and blue,” Sara finished, her voice lowering. 

The other woman that had helped dress me and wash me had offered to apply white powder to conceal them, but Akiko had refused, saying something along the lines of ‘she needs to look as natural as possible, powders will just make her look cheap’.

“That’s only temporary,” Akiko was quick to assure her, not seeming nervous at all. 

“And she’s so skinny,” the woman kept on, as if Akiko had never spoken, grabbing the upper part of my flaky arm, her index and middle finger encircling it with ease.

Fear clawed at my chest, not daring to think about what would be of me if I didn’t get this job.

“Forgive me, I haven’t had much to eat lately…Sara-sama,” I spoke, keeping my voice soft and compliant, my gaze set on the floor.

That seemed to sit well with her, her eyes sharpening on me, but at the same time feeling very far away.

“She’s very agreeable,” she noted. “She could be good at making conversation and serving tea.”

Akiko nodded eagerly, her features contorting with something I couldn’t quite place. It reminded me of the look drunkards got on their faces when they spotted me alone in the dark. It was hungry and dark with yearning.

“How old are you, girl?” Sara inquired.

My stomach dropped.

“I’ll soon be thirteen, my lady.”

That was six months from now, which wasn’t exactly soon, but I was afraid she would reject me if she found me too young. And by the look on her face, I was probably correct.

“You know I don’t take in younger than fourteen,” she raised her gaze to Akiko.

“You could have her serve tea, my lady,” Akiko answered, in a sugary voice. “She is quite lovely, I’m sure the clients wouldn’t mind.”

Sara’s mouth twitched at that, something akin to the look you would give to an insect at the sole of your shoe gleaming upon her dark eyes.

“ _I_ would mind.”

Her eyes shone with disappointment as she dismissed us with a gesture of her hand, the feeling of her fingers leaving my skin leaving me strangely hollow and cold inside, as if all life had been sucked out of me in that very moment, the sting of her rejection making my face burn.

“Leave,” was all she said, her gaze turning distant as she looked at the door, where two sturdy looking men stood.

“Please,” I begged, clasping the silky fabric of her clothes, tears pressing behind my eyes.

“I don’t do charity, child.” Was her curt answer, as she dignified my words by turning her head to me.

“I will do anything you ask me to; I will work harder than anyone else,” I pleaded, my eyes feeling painfully open as a single tear slipped out of them. “ _Please_.”

Our gazes met and her features seemed to soften, something akin to a dazed expression shining on her beautiful colored eyes as a resigned look crept into her face. My eyes felt strangely warm, as if I had stared too long and too closely into a fire.

I blinked and the feeling was gone.

“Fine. You shall serve tea and help with chores.” Sara’s features cleared as she drew her eyes away from mine, a confused expression shaping her features for a second before she schooled them back into blankness.

It might have been my imagination, but when I turned to look at her one last time as Akiko pulled me by my wrist somewhere away, her eyes held a calculating quality as she stared at my steps, something in the distant look upon them telling me she wasn’t quite _seeing_ me, rather than seizing what I could be.

  
  


That same night I was given a room in the brothel, it was small, with a worn-out wooden floor, but it felt like heaven. There was another futon a few feet from mine, but the door was shut on my face before I could even ask who my mystery companion was.

Falling asleep was hard at first, as my mind wandered back to the kunai my father had given me before leaving me in that alley, the one I would clench in my hands before falling asleep, now imbedded into the branch I used to sleep in, its abandonment much too symbolical for my taste. 

_Courtesans don’t have kunai tucked in their obi_ , I thought, feeling as if my whole body was being suffocated by the much too soft mattress compared to nights and nights resting against hard wood.

However, my exhaustion must have been bigger than I had deemed, because I fell asleep shortly after, thoughts of obsidian eyes and slited pupils dancing behind my eyelids, a satisfied sound that didn’t belong to me echoing in my mind before I fell into oblivion.


	4. Changes

The following days I was introduced to the workings of the pleasure house. 

It was open from noon to the first hours of the morning, then closed so the courtesans could rest and eat without worrying about limited timing, as well as to be able to wash sheets, make beds and sweep the floors. 

In the mornings, Sara taught me the basics to the tea serving ceremony, guiding me through the procedure with surprising patience while also showing me the art of conversation. 

When I wasn’t doing that, I was helping my ‘sisters’ as Sara had told me to call them, preparing them baths, running errands for them, sending and receiving letters, bringing back gifts other men occasionally gave them, among similar activities.

When there wasn’t much activity of that sort, I would help Yuuka —whom I later found was the person I shared my room with when she had gently woken me the morning after being taken in by Sara, her dark downturned eyes crinkling slightly at the corners when she smiled good-naturedly at me. 

She did most of the cleaning and cooking and was probably in her early thirties, although she may have looked beyond her actual age since despite her motherly behavior towards me, she was also quite cheerful and energetic, not to mention that her physical performance was clearly at its peak. 

She barely let me do anything, seeming to do it ten times faster than me, for Kami’s sake.

It took less than I had originally thought to find myself somewhat acclimated to my new situation, perhaps in part thanks to her welcoming and patient presence.

Perhaps that newfound sense of what wasn’t exactly comfort was what helped me find the courage to ask the much-dreaded question that had kept me from sleep after a few days of training with Sara, barely keeping myself from stuttering.

“Will I have to…kiss them?” 

Sara’s penetrating gaze fell on me as she corrected my posture with her hand, then gesturing for me to start all over again. 

There was no need to ask who I meant by ‘them’.

“You will not. All your services will be reduced to the arts until I deem it otherwise. Should any of them overstep in any way that endangers you, you will call for Shinsuke. Understood?”

Shinsuke was in charge of preventing any ‘unpleasant’ situations with clients. He was usually doing rounds outside of the dorm doors, his broad form casting shadows on the hallway.

I nodded, lowering my eyes to my hands, now resting on my lap. 

They were littered with tiny scars, a few tones lighter than my natural skin, some protruding slightly while others were barely visible, a testimony of the life that now seemed so far away from me. 

Most of them were from when I had first started to train with kunai and shuriken, accompanied by hardened areas on what once was the soft skin of my palms from hours of training, childish hands against cold metal, wood and dirt.

I wasn’t as naïve as to think that Sara hadn’t noticed, but her reaction to them had only reduced to a single look before continuing with the lesson. As if she didn’t consider them relevant enough to take away from the attractiveness of the tea ceremony, which I had to admit resided partly in the hands.

I could only pray Sara attributed those scars to my time living in the wilderness and not to anything else, but that chance was becoming slimmer and slimmer the longer I interacted with those sharp-witted eyes that seemed to be attentive of the tiniest of details. 

For some time after that I couldn’t help but feel like a fool for not using a Transformation Jutsu to cover that up, but had quickly discarded the idea since I couldn’t risk any chakra sensitive person —whether ninja or civilian— to uncover my identity. 

This was a town lower ranked or retired ninja seemed to enjoy visiting, as I had noticed in my short stay, whether because of the hitai-ate or their general demeanors, and I could only wonder how they would react to my chakra, or worse, if they could relate its signature to my father’s. 

So I had kept it suppressed enough to pass merely as a civilian, trying to go as unnoticed as possible, even keeping my quarrels with drunkards messy, not trying to show any affinity towards finer fighting styles—even though I clearly wasn’t an expert or prodigy of any sort. 

Suppressing my chakra had been excruciatingly difficult at first, since it was a technique I had never actually applied beyond experimental attempts after reading it in one of father’s numerous scrolls. 

He had never liked to teach things thoroughly, for it seemed to me that he thought if you couldn’t grasp the basics of a jutsu after a short explanation then perhaps you shouldn’t be doing it. 

Was I being paranoid? Perhaps, but as Anko liked to say, there was no such a thing as being too careful. Something I considered somewhat funny, since she could be quite impulsive at times.

“So, Cho,” Sara began, pulling me away from my thoughts. “You told me you lived in the woods for some time,” she said, almost as if she had sensed where my train of thought had gone, her voice almost too casual. 

“How could a little thing like yourself manage to do that?”

Keeping my shoulders relaxed and my hands from fidgeting by returning to the part of the ceremony where I cleaned the tools, I maintained eye contact as well as I could between movements, trying to find the best way to tackle the subject without my nervousness shining though.

“When you are hungry enough you learn to manage.” 

My vague response elicited a thoughtful gleam upon her eyes, ones I once had naively compared to precious stones, now resembling more the ones of a predator in the night as she almost absentmindedly corrected the posture of my wrist.

We remained in tense silence as her gaze remained speculatively on mine for a few seconds too long, until she simply said:

“I’m sure you do. You can begin to prepare the Matcha now.” 

After that, our interaction was reduced to her corrections and indications, sometimes giving me examples of the kind of conversation that would be pleasant and enjoyable, as well as how to know when a client just didn’t want to talk at all.

“Of course, during the tea ceremony you will be quiet, let them take in the beauty of the procedure, let the silence soothe their minds. If they desire to converse afterwards —which will often be the case— then it is your duty to indulge them to the best of your capacities,” she had instructed, her intimidating eyes not leaving mine, making sure to get that point across. 

  
  


After that day, Sara seemed to be fairly satisfied with my abilities, allowing me to begin to work, assuring that she would make sure my first clients were easy enough for me to adjust.

I couldn’t deny that despite all my preparations I was quite nervous, my stomach churning and hands barely kept from fidgeting. 

It was my first client and I was sure Sara wouldn’t be as understanding as she tried to appear if I failed horribly at my first attempts. She was a businesswoman and pity didn’t bide well with money.

So I took a few breaths and repeated her teachings over and over on my head like commandments, my hands moving slightly as I pictured the movements.

“Don’t show your teeth when you laugh or smile,” I spoke under my breath —though I couldn’t think of any reason I would be doing any of those things in said situation, at least not genuinely.

“Don’t look them in the eye unless they ask you to, keep your gaze trained down. Don’t ask personal questions.”

And then the small door opened.

  
  


Thankfully after the first clients, my confidence stabilized, letting me immerse myself in the tea ceremony rather than the observer.

“You did well,” Sara congratulated once the day was over, as she had been waiting outside the room, her eyes gleaming as the ones of a jeweler after finding an unpolished stone.

I gave her my first genuine smile. 

At the beggining, I had seen the tea ceremony as a mechanical act, a series of steps to be followed with precision. 

I had soon been taken out of that assumption after applying Sara’s teachings, realizing it _was_ an art after all, focused on finding the beauty in simplicity, in flowing movements that were graceful yet filled with purpose. 

A _nice_ purpose, I realized. And perhaps not too different from what I used to do.

Whereas in training every movement was indeed instilled with a meaning and a reason behind it, it was a deadly one. When I served tea my hands weren’t to hit, weren’t to cut, to bleed, but to soothe. 

Perhaps I was still sort of a tool, but one meant for beauty, for calm. 

I should have known that kind of peace wasn’t meant to last.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was kind of a slow chapter, but please bare with me!! Thank you for reading c:


	5. The Stranger

_I still taste the past_

The next month, winter was already here, snow coating every surface with deathly beauty, the houses, the trees, the floor, all crowned in white, so easily turned into mud at the bat of an eye. Children went out, clad in their warmest clothes to play with the snow, their laughter undulating through the air like a numbing balm against the bleakness that surrounded us.

I guessed that my immediate problems and worries had kept my emotions somewhat suppressed enough for me to manage things without being a complete mess. However, that act could not be kept up for long.

When there were no more drunkards, once there was a roof under my head, and I was warm and fed and had a job, the immediate worries of survival disappeared, allowing the mess inside my heart to stick its ugly head.

I missed Anko. I missed the late evening training sessions until we couldn’t even stand without having wobbly knees. I even missed those moments when father would leave us in the forest for days, as much as they had scared me once. But most of all, I missed mother. 

It was incredibly frightening how easily we could slip into forgetfulness, how quickly a face would become blurry, how our memory would fail to conjure up a voice or a touch, to the point where I would sometimes wonder if the memories I used to soothe myself to sleep were real or invented. 

I think I even missed my father, as much as it felt like a deep cut to my chest just to admit it. A part of me wondered if he missed me too, if he regretted leaving me here to rot. If he would return one day to find me gone.

 **Doesn’t matter** , a voice said quietly at the back of my head. And this time, for a change, I was the one who kept the line between us quiet.

Even if I was safe for the time being, my only pay was exactly what I said: food and a roof under my head. That didn’t exactly point me in the direction I wanted to go, which was as far from here as my feet could take me.

_Where to?_

I couldn’t think of a concrete answer.

Thoughts of fresh grass and trees that reached into the sky danced before my eyes, an image completely evoked from my imagination, since all I could go by were Anko’s descriptions, which I could only get out of her after nagging and nagging to no end. 

Other times they would almost bleed out of her, in a voice that became oddly soft and rough as she whispered about Konohagakure, the extremely warm weather, the colossal rock where the faces of the Hokages were engraved, the thick forest that surrounded the village with trunks as wide as her height. 

She even told me about the famous Will of Fire once, and I remembered thinking that even if it was a bit too idealistic for me, it was still a nice concept, to think that love could be _that_ powerful. In my experience, I had yet to see a time when love could overcome any of the hardships of life, to fight against all odds and come out victorious. 

My mother’s love hadn’t kept her from succumbing to her illness, nor had it managed to soften my father’s heart or keep him from leaving us for so long. Her fate had been carelessly left by him into the hands of her father, an old, bitter farmer; who was obviously less than thrilled to find his eldest daughter was pregnant before even marrying. 

And yet, he had allowed her to stay by his side, to give birth to a child who would have no family name, nor hers or its father’s. 

I wouldn’t go back there. As far as I was concerned, I was an orphan. The only person who had ever truly cared about me was gone, and just like that, the only home I had ever known had become nothing more than a reminder of her absence.

So the most utopian option remained, probably as a dream to bounce back to when I needed to escape from the harsh reality of my life for a while. A thought reserved for those moments between awakeness and sleep.

Some part of me had always felt drawn to Konoha. After all, it was my father’s homeland, even if he seemed to feel nothing but hatred and disdain for it. 

Still, I doubted that even if I managed to find a hidden village, I would be accepted there. Anko had once told me that they were very wary of outsiders, even more so now with the ongoing war. Thus, a dream, indeed.

“Why so thoughtful, Cho-chan?” Ran, one of the youngest courtesans asked, chasing away any thoughts of the past or the future, 

“No reason,” I smiled slightly, tilting my face to look at her standing figure, not bothering to dodge the slender, pale hand stretching out to ruffle my hair.

Her sapphire eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled back much less reservedly than me and let go of my hair, sitting beside me, the warmth of her arm radiating into my side as she seemed to bask into the additional heat the fireplace beside us provided. 

“You aren’t slacking off, are you?” She inquired with gentle playfulness, keeping her eyes closed as she tilted her head to the side.

“It’s Yuuka-san,” I grumbled. “She’s not letting me help her with anything!”

Every time I asked her if she needed any help, she would just send me that motherly smile, turning her head over her shoulder to say: ‘I’m good, thank you, Cho-chan’. 

As sweet as it was, it was getting old.

Knowing her coddling nature, I had taken the habit of doing things before she could get to them, already having broomed, washed the dishes from breakfast, sent a few letters from the courtesans and scrubbed the kitchen floor before Yuuka had shushed me away, doing it herself.

“Ah, she has taken a liking to you, I see,” Ran laughed, raking her fingers through her luscious auburn hair, her face sobering up a little after a moment, mirth still glistening in her eyes as she eyed me intently. “Then I guess you could deliver a letter for me, ne?”

My back straightened at that, and I realized a little too late I probably looked like an over eager puppy.

Ran bit down a smile, but didn’t comment any further as she extended an envelope previously hidden under her sleeve to me.

“Ask for Ryū at the inn. Tall fella, dark hair, green eyes,” her own gaze took a dreamy, glazed-over look before she seemed to remember my presence, clearing her throat softly. “Anyway, you should hurry before Sara sees you like this.”

Taking the envelope and jumping to my feet, I nodded to her, putting on a worn coat and the warm winter boots Yuuko had given me, which I was pretty sure used to be hers, given that they were a bit big for me.

“On my way, Ran-san.”

Her soft laugh was still ringing in my ears after I left, high and melodious.

  
  


I could tell something was off the moment I entered the inn, my eyes drawn to the tall, muscular woman leaning casually against the counter as she talked to the owner. Others may have considered it an inane occurrence on a normal day, but they couldn’t feel the chakra emanating from her body like I did. 

It felt earthly and stable, but fragile at the same time, like the stillness of the ground that could shift into an earthquake at any moment. Yet, something about it felt…wrong, like hearing a conversation from another room, dull and hard to grasp completely. 

Checking that my chakra was as suppressed as possible, my grip on it faltered for a second, the pain from keeping it down for so long blinding me for a moment before I reigned it back in, forcing my trembling fingers to stabilize around the paper and doing my best to keep my pace steady as I neared them.

I appraised her for a moment as I stood close enough to look like I was waiting to speak to the innkeeper while also being able to sneak a peek into their conversation.

“…don’t have anyone under that name staying at the inn, miss,” Shou —the owner of the inn— tiredly explained, pushing his glasses back against the bridge of his nose, a habit of his I had picked up the times I had been here to deliver letters or short messages from the courtesans.

The tall woman let out a softly disappointed sound as she flicked a strand of dirty blonde hair off her forehead. I noticed she wasn’t wearing a hitai-ate. 

_Retired?_ I wondered. _She looks too young for that. Maybe she’s crippled or sick? Doesn’t look like it to me, though. Maybe it has more to do with the weird state of her chakra._

“That’s too bad. Sure you haven’t seen him around, sir?” She almost pouted, looking charmingly pleading instead of what I would’ve assumed as whiny had it been anyone else. “Tall, black hair, green eyes?”

My breath caught in my throat at her description, so similar to the one Ran had given me.

Shou gave her a brusque shrug as he looked down at something in his desk, a hint that he was done with the conversation, the shift in his attitude as soon as the stranger had become more insistent, a clear sign that he was growing wary of her inquiries.

“A lot of people come and go through my inn; a man my age could hardly remember all of them.”

A lie if I had ever heard one. 

Shou had one of the sharpest minds in town, a businessman from head to toe. Still, it couldn’t be anything more than a coincidence, right? 

Like he said, a lot of people came and left town, it wouldn’t have been strange if at least two of them looked alike. And yet, something about her, the way she carried herself, grew an uneasy feeling at the pit of my stomach.

I couldn’t dwell much on it, though, since Shou’s dark brown eyes fell on me.

“Cho,” he acknowledged, his gaze straying to the envelope in my hand. “A letter, I assume?”

I nodded, doing my best not to stiffen when the tall woman turned to me, the slight strain in the inn keeper’s voice seeming to somewhat pique her interest.

Shou wasn’t very fond of Sara, or her line of business, yet, he appeared to tolerate it given how much it had to do with his client income. Funny how people’s morals could bend like rubber when it came to money.

It was kind of hypocritical for me to say it, though. Hadn’t I looked down on them too when Akiko had offered me a job at the pleasure house? Maybe we weren’t all too different.

“Addressed to Ryū?” I said, my words sounding more like a question than a statement.

“Ah yes,” was all Shou said, and it was enough for me to hand the letter down to him, who would make sure it reached its owner, the deal he had with Sara binded him to do so.

And then, with a stiff farewell, I left, my uneasiness doing nothing but increase as I began the now familiar path back to the brothel.

What was wrong with me? 

**Instinct,** a voice I was mostly used to hearing in my dreams seethed at the back of my mind. **You can tell she means trouble.**

 _How could she be trouble? She barely has any chakra_ , I retorted, frustrated by the silence that followed.

Well, that was…typical.

Immersed in my internal banter, I didn’t realize the woman had left the inn, quickly following my steps until she was walking beside me, jumping in my own skin when she placed a hand on my shoulder briefly.

“Cho-chan, is it?” She asked, giving me a friendly smile that somehow didn’t fit her face. “I noticed you grew a bit nervous when I mentioned my friend. Have you seen anyone like that around?”

“I see a lot of people,” I mumbled, taking one from Shou’s book as I shook her hand off me.

Still, she went on, undeterred by my quiet apathy.

“You see, we were supposed to meet, but I can’t find him anywhere,” her eyes crinkled at the corners a bit as she smiled at me once more, dampened by the growing concern she was attempting to conceal without much success. 

“I’m just worried,” she finally admitted. “He has always had a knack for finding trouble, I would hate it if something happened before I could help him.”

My resolve quavered at that, a part of me feeling sorry for her, and wondering what kind of trouble she could mean. 

Perhaps he was a gambler? 

Nevertheless, it was well known to be discreet in towns like this, where secretive shinobi brought food to everyone’s table. Having a big mouth could only get you in trouble. And that silent reminder was enough to crush any kind of compassion I could be feeling towards her.

“Sorry,” _and I was_. “I don’t think I’ve seen anyone that could fit in that description.”

She threw another of those faint smiles of poorly concealed distress in my direction, slowing her step, seeming to accept she wouldn’t get anything out of me.

“Well, that’s a shame. Thank you anyway. See you around, Cho-chan.”

I sincerely hoped we didn’t.

  
  


A few hours later, a man on his twenties that fit the description both of the woman from the inn— whose name I had forgotten to ask— and Ran’s entered the pleasure house as I walked towards the room where I performed the tea ceremony in, now dressed up for the occasion, wearing a simple but pretty kimono Sara had given me.

I almost tripped on my own feet when I sensed something from him.

He was a ninja. The strange chakra emanating from his body being a testament of it, sharing that subdued feeling with the woman from the inn, the same earthly tone, but more controlled and immense, like the feeling of a mountain surging before you without moving the earth beneath your feet.

He didn’t spare me a single glance as he moved past, which I was thankful for. 

Little did I know how much I would regret not having done anything at that very moment.


	6. The Imposter

_Coincidences are the scars of fate. There are no coincidences, we are puppets of our own unconsciousness._

_— Carlos Ruiz Safón_

It took a few seconds to pinpoint the reason behind the sudden churning in my stomach, but as soon as I did, it was impossible to ignore. A ripple of chakra swirled around us, slowly at first, as if it had just been stirred from a long dream, unleashing its full power with such bone rattling intensity afterwards I was surprised the floor didn’t quaver beneath us. 

It was only when I sent a decent amount of chakra to my ears that distinct noises from struggle struck me, sounds of bodies clashing against walls and splintering furniture concealing the quiet whimpers coming from a very familiar voice.

Ran.

The hand that was pouring the tea into the cup trembled, spilling some of it beside me, a single drop staining the fabric of my kimono.

Barely looking at the man before me, I remember standing up with a mumbled ‘excuse me’, rushing out of the room, sweat pooling at my brow at the effort and concentration of maintaining the focused chakra in my ears after the extended lack of use of it, accompanied by the mind-boggling pain it entailed, like the agonizing blood flow after rising weight from a crushed limb.

In an attempt to distract myself from the pain, I focused my attention on the sounds of struggle, which had lessened, now replaced by Ran´s quiet whimpers as hushed voices seemed to discuss something too low for me to hear. 

As I got closer and closer to the room, the words became clearer.

“…fucking slit her throat,” a breathy voice threatened, causing Ran’s cries to intensify before he shushed her roughly, sounding like he gave her body a good shake, guided by her unstable breathing and the rustling of fabric.

“She’s just a courtesan, leave her out of this.” Another voice chimed in, so unwaveringly calm I had no doubt in my mind it belonged to the dark-haired man, Ryū. It matched perfectly his chakra signature.

“We will. Once you drop your weapon and come with us,” the companion of the breathy voiced man said, sounding distant and calm, almost indifferent — a stark contrast to his partner. “And no pulling stunts if you know what’s good for you.”

There was a moment of strained silence, the tension so thick it could have been cut by a knife, only their breaths breaking the eerie quiet that had fallen upon the room.

And then, like the calm before a storm, all hell broke loose.

A thundering noise burst through the air, causing agonizing pain to lash at my ears as I abruptly halted the flow of chakra that enhanced my hearing, a headache beginning to pounce at my temples with relentless insistence. 

My hand shot to the door frame for support as the floor beneath us shook so forcefully I would have believed it to be an earthquake, had it not been for my awareness of the conversation going on behind that door. And it seemed to be what everyone else in the building thought as well, for the rooms emptied as they began to hurry out with various sounds of alarm, my meagre frame swallowed by the moving crowd.

But there was only one thought running through my mind at that moment.

My hand reached for the door knob.

 **Don’t!** A voice barked inside my head, but it was too late, I was already inside the room.

Or what was left of it, at least.

The wooden floor had been cracked into shards by sharp pointed forms of what looked like rock protruding from it, as thick as my torso, splinters of wood sprouting around them like wild weeds. There were two sharp ended pinnacles, each one of them going through the torsos of the men who were threatening Ryū — who I assumed had caused it, since he was the only one left standing.

But it wasn’t the bloodied, pale bodies what captured my attention. Not at all.

Ran. 

Her back was pressed to the front of one of said men —probably the one with the disgustingly breathy voice, I guessed at the back of my mind. Her features were terribly pale, the youthful rosiness of her cheeks completely drained out.

It took one look at the center of her chest to know why, blood spreading rapidly through her silky gown, the hard tip of the rock beneath barely visible, but there. 

The eyes I had considered so beautiful glassed over as she distantly gazed at me. She had this look…it wasn’t even pain or fear, it was just plain shock. Her eyes were unnaturally wide, framed by arched, raised eyebrows, as if she was still trying to make out what had happened to her.

“Cho…” she coughed, a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of her mouth, my eyes following the trajectory across her chin with languid horror.

And there it was, realization. Her eyebrows lowered, an almost peaceful expression settling upon her fair features as her head dropped slightly to the side, like she was a baby again, with no strength to keep her head upright.

I finally snapped out of my trance.

“No,” I cried, darting to be right in front of her, ignoring the horrible humid warmth wetting the soles of my feet once I was there. “Ran?”

My vision blurred and stung as my hands cupped her cheeks, gently holding her head upright.

Her gaze settled back on me with an almost otherworldly look to it, like she wasn’t quite seeing me; unshed tears making her irises shine like the calm water of a lagoon, water seeping out of it like drying waterfalls.

“No!” It seemed to be the only word my brain was able to compute as I shook my head, the tears that dripped down my cheeks blending with blood.

I gazed back at her chest, the crimson stain now spread all over it, larger than it had been before.

“There’s nothing you can do,” a quiet voice spoke behind me after all life seemed to wither out of her eyes, becoming glazed and unfocused.

My hands dropped at my sides, clenching into nail-biting fists, hard enough to draw blood.

“ _You_ ,” I gritted through my teeth as I turned, feeling the control I once had over my chakra snap, pain rushing through my every limb as its full magnitude cursed through me after months. But it was a welcome distraction from another kind of hurt. One that was harder to endure.

I had never felt like this before, not even after my mother’s death. Pure hatred at _his_ existence bit at my insides like a living beast clawing its way into my chest. My hands trembled as everything around me blurred, my vision in a razor sharp focus on him, the walls of the room enclosing suffocatingly around me. 

I wanted to kill him, to beat him until the skin of my knuckles burst. I wanted to collapse at Ran’s feet and howl like a wild animal until the pain at my chest yielded. How dared he? How dared he even be in the same room as her after what he did?

“You killed her!” I blew up, the words barely intelligible as I lunged at him, my fist aimed right at his face.

He didn’t move.

My knuckles cracked at the impact, his body tilting to the side like a tree shaken by the wind, but his feet still firmly planted in the same spot.

“Better?” He asked, causing some sick satisfaction to course through me when he spat a bit of blood at his side, his teeth stained with red when he spoke. Still, the fact that he didn’t fight back angered more than I could begin to understand.

 **Human** , that familiar voice called at the back of my head, but I was far too gone to care.

“It’ll be better when you are dead,” I growled. 

Bold words for someone in my situation, I knew, but at that point I wasn’t thinking straight. Grief and fury pumped through my body as my whole world felt reduced to this moment. There was nothing else, no logic, no fear, no nothing. 

If I had to die, I wouldn’t do it without a fight — and most importantly — , not without getting some hits in. What was left for me to lose?

“They would have tortured her. Held her captive to control me. This was a mercy in comparison to what they would have done to her.” 

There was genuine pain on his face, the most rational side of me noted. His eyes bright with unshed tears; the corners of his lips turned hopelessly downwards as he spoke. But it did nothing to calm my fury. I think it might have just added fuel to the fire.

“Why didn’t you just kill _them_ , then?!” I yelled, childish tears running down my cheeks. 

Had they been there all along?

 **You need to calm down. He could snap at any moment.** The voice was louder and more urgent this time, not waiting for me to show a sign that I was listening.

_I don’t care._

He tilted his head to me, eyes now full of pity.

“They are not the only ones here.”

And as if summoned, three more figures dropped from the ceiling, fast as shadows as they surrounded us with a gust of air, clad in black.

And that’s when fear finally set in.

My back hit Ryū’s almost without me noticing the steps I had taken backwards to be in that place, my body shifting clumsily into a fighting stance that once had come to me as easily as breathing. I cursed myself at the back of my mind for not even trying to slip an attempt at training here and there during my stay. 

“As soon as there’s an opening, run. Leave town and don’t look back,” Ryū ordered, his stance rigid yet steady.

I nodded, not daring kid myself into thinking I wouldn’t be anything more than a nuisance for him. That in the case he did give a crap about my life. But I preferred not to dwell too much on that point.

“You didn’t bring any kind of weapon with you?” I asked in a trembling voice after he drew nothing out but his fists, deeply hoping he had ignored the brothel’s rules and had managed to slip at least some in.

“They don’t let you bring those in here,” Ryū muttered, not turning to look at me. “That matron of yours is quite knowledgeable on ninja techniques.”

The slimmer hope I once died out like a candle flame under a gust of wind. But before I had any more time to internally panic about it, the fight began.

As expected, two of the men attacked Ryū, while one stuck to me, looking confident as ever as he threw a kunai at my neck, which I managed to dodge by an inch, a chunk of my hair sliced among the sound of metal cutting through air breezing by my ear.

He left no time for me to feel satisfied at my quick reflexes, throwing a quick hit at my exposed side almost immediately, which I pathetically managed to block, numbing pain shooting up my arm, distracting me enough to miss the hand hurled at my neck, slamming my body roughly against the wall behind me, which I hadn’t realized he had been cornering me into until it was too late.

And then he closed his hands around my neck with a sick gleam upon his eyes, no mercy or compassion whatsoever.

All thoughts were snapped out of my head as soon as the airflow was cut off my lungs, my hands clawing at his gloved knuckles to no avail, my legs kicking desperately beneath me, but he was too near for them to do any real damage. 

_That’s it. I’m gonna die._

Something seemed to break within me, everything becoming clearer as panic seeped out of my body, replaced by a disturbing calm as one of the ninja’s hands let go of me, not removing more than an ounce of pressure as it drifted out of my sight, probably towards his pouch in search for a kunai to finish the job.

Warmth flooded my eyes, reminding me of the sensation of heat when you got too close to a fire, not completely comfortable yet not enough to burn. My vision was tainted with gold as my eyes met his, watching almost morbidly as every thought seemed to be emptied out of his mind, his gaze taking an almost hypnotized expression as his hand stilled their movement, his choke hold faltering as I felt his fingers tremble against my neck.

What was happening?

I had no time to wonder, roughly snapped out of my trance as blood splashed against my face, the smell and the sensation of some of it dripping down my cheek being enough to swallow down the rising bile from the back of my throat.

When the surprisingly familiar form of a muscular woman appeared from behind the now dead ninja at my feet, all the earlier warmth left, a slight tinge of gold remaining in my vision when a sudden sting at my eyes caused my vision to blur for a moment.

“You alright, girl?” She asked, her gaze sharp on me as she seemed to seize me, her eyes curiously not staying on mine for too long. 

At that point I was to manage anything past a short nod, swallowing back the rising nausea beneath my tongue as I wobbled away from the dead man at my feet, the relief of her presence draining the adrenaline that was left from the fight.

It was then that I noticed the other men were dead as well, one of them with a slitted throat while the other had a much smaller piece of rock stabbing his chest.

Ryū, however, didn’t seem to share my relief at the sight of our new guest, guided by the fighting pose he was adapting, now facing us in a manner that reminded me of a cornered animal, his knuckles whitening as he closed his hand tighter around the bloodied piece of splintered wood he clearly had used in self defense. 

“You sure you want to get into a fight with me, big boy?” My savior taunted, not looking even a bit worried about her opponent’s abilities, in a pose so subtly defensive it was hard to tell if it was conscious or not. 

Ryū spat at her feet, eliciting an almost humorous snarl to curl at her lips, something sharp settling into her grey eyes. My mind idly turned back to how I thought that friendly smile she had sent my way when we first spoke didn’t fit her face and realized that somehow the gesture she was wearing now did it much better.

“You’re not looking very fresh to me,” she continued, unfazed.

My eyes drifted back to Ryū, as if seeing him by the first time since the fight began. It wasn’t hard to tell he was exhausted. Sweat pearled his brow, shoulders slumped and skin ghostly pale as his breathing became more and more labored, despite how much he seemed to be trying to conceal it. 

“The way I see it, you can come with me or wait for the friends of the guys that killed your girlfriend to come finish the job. I’m sure they can’t be that far,” the woman bluntly said, then speaking to me without turning her head. “Same goes for you, kid.”

The need to inquire why she even allowed me to go with them was urgent, but the tension in her jaw and back as she kept her gaze focused on Ryū was enough for me to think better of it. I doubted she would answer even if I asked. And it didn’t seem like I had much of an option, either. I knew what happened to people with valuable information in war. Father had made sure to tell Anko and me the most gruesome tales.

Ryū’s shoulders sank after a few seconds, his features shifting into the image of defeat as he straightened his stance, leaning heavily on his right foot, deviating my gaze to the bleeding gash on his left calf.

“Good call, Jūrō. My name is Akane Fujimori and I will make sure to escort you to Konohagakure _unharmed_.”


	7. Painful Truths

An hour later, after what felt like endless running through the woods, my gaze fell on the sleeping shape of Jūrō — previously known as Ryū. He had stretched the sleeping bag Akane had given him and laid down almost as soon as she had signaled for us to stop, informing we would sleep here for the night and then wordlessly moving to start a fire. 

Half an hour later, Jūrō’s back was turned to us, breathing slow and paced and I briefly wondered if he was pretending or not to be asleep.

Why had he not disguised himself if he knew there were ninja after him?

I didn’t realize I had mused it out loud until Akane’s unladylike snort cut off my train of thought with a startle. It was still a bit jarring to see her true personality after the helpless act she had pulled before. 

“That was his disguise, kid.”

“Why didn’t he change it more often, then?” I asked, resting my cheek against my knee, which was hugged to my chest — not everyone had the luxury of a sleeping bag and it was midwinter, I had barely had enough time to gather some warm clothes before leaving the pleasure house.

Akane gave me a noncommittal shrug.

“Laziness? Overconfidence?” She numbered, taking a sip of her canteen before rubbing a finger against her temple, as if just thinking about it gave her a headache. “Fuck if I know, do I look like a shrink to you, brat?”

Guess this was the end of her magnanimous mood. I steeled myself for the next question I was about to make, pressing my palms with bruising force against my shinbone. 

“Who were the men that killed Ran?”

She seized me for a moment, her features being the perfect image of blankness before she seemed to decide the answer was harmless enough, returning to her sarcastic, if not completely cynical attitude.

“Shinobi from Iwagakure. Not very experienced by the looks of it.”

I guessed they weren’t wearing their hitai-ates for the same reason Akane wasn’t. They were undercover.

“So you’re a ninja of Konoha,” I stated, rather than asked, almost laughing bitterly at my very own private irony. It seemed that after all, getting there wasn’t as much of a dream as I had initially thought.

She tilted her head to me.

“You seem to be familiar with the place.”

I didn’t reply, which led to a moment of awkward silence where I pretty much let my eyes wander anywhere in an attempt to keep myself from being too transparent, knowing where the conversation was bound to head towards.

When I finally gave up, turning back to her in a meek attempt not to appear too intimidated, her grey eyes penetratingly fixed on mine letting me know all the previous inquiries were nothing but warm up, mostly for my sake. 

“How did you know I was a shinobi?” She finally asked, straightening her back, lowering her canteen to the ground as she leaned forward, elbows pressed to her knees.

“What makes you think I knew?”

She snorted, but it sounded almost dangerous.

“Don’t play dumb with me, kid.”

I had to make a physical effort not to shrug.

“I noticed your chakra,” I said, not sure how to phrase it. 

I had been taught the basics of chakra sensing, but ever since I became stranded — more like abandoned, but it didn’t feel very motivating to think of it that way — in that cursed town, it had felt like a switch had been turned, I just couldn’t fathom  _ not _ sensing it, even if most of the time it was a really faint feeling.

Her eyebrows raised, a pleasantly surprised look flashing upon her features.

“You ‘ _ noticed _ ’ my chakra?”

“It had a weird feeling to it. Like you were sick or something,” I added, scrunching my nose a little.

She nodded, the surprise washing out of her face quite quickly, bouncing back into the determined —if not slightly aggressive— expression I was now growing accustomed to consider as her natural one.

“That’s because I was suppressing it just enough to go unnoticed unless being actively searched for, kid.”

My mouth formed a silent ‘o’, and I felt more than a bit foolish for not having thought about that.

“Hn. So that’s what Jūrō was doing too,” I realized, barely registering Akane’s curt nod as another idea began to brew at the back of my mind.

“Did you feel my chakra as well? Is that why you approached me so insistently?” I inquired, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. 

She couldn’t have met my father before, could she…? 

Even if she did, I didn’t even know if our chakra signatures were similar at all. Whereas I knew my father’s chakra felt cold and slippery, like a shadow casted upon the stone of a river, I had no clue as to how mine felt.

A sharp gleam took hold of her icy grey eyes.

“I’m not the strong sensory type, girl, but I felt you searching through the room like a fuckin’ slap to the face.”

I felt my skin flush up to my ears.

“Not to mention the way you stiffened like a log when I mentioned my ‘friend’s’ looks. Or how your chakra suppression slipped a bit as soon as you got in.”

This time I couldn’t keep the wince in.

“That bad?”

A smirk tugged at the corner of Akane’s full lips as her face tilted to the side, reminding me of the way one would study the most interesting pup out of the litter.

“A bit. Not too bad for a pint-sized brat, though.” 

Then she shrugged brusquely, leaning back. 

“But you should keep in mind that I’m trained to notice things like that. The innkeeper you could’ve fooled. Me?” Her smirk became wolfish. “Not a chance.”

A moment of silence.

“Now.” She began, making me shift under her scrutiny. “What was that thing you did back there with your eyes? I had never seen a dojutsu like that.”

My brows furrowed. That word...it sounded familiar, but I couldn’t remember exactly what it meant.

“Dojutsu?” I echoed.

Akane seemed to be on the brink of her patience.

“Yeah, an eye technique. Like the Sharingan,”she gestured ominously to her own eyes.

My memory drifted back to those seconds when my eyes had suddenly felt so warm, the way the world became tinged by gold, details sharpening. It hadn’t been the first time I had felt it. 

My blood ran cold. Back then, when I had begged Sara to take me in...had I influenced her in some way?

A strange emotion nestled at the back of my throat. I had no memory of anything of the sort happening before those two times. Could it be some kind of kekkei genkai? Shouldn’t my father have mentioned it before?

“I don’t know,” I finally said. “It has only happened twice. I can’t control it.”

It was our first night in the wild, already quite far from town, when Jūrō spoke directly to me for the first time since we left the brothel. 

Akane was keeping watch somewhere over a tree, legs dangling at the sides of the thick branch she was sitting in, several traps already set around our camp, the bright fire we were sitting around having been applied a genjutsu to keep the smoke from being detected from afar.

“I didn’t mean to kill her,” his voice sliced through the silence like a tangible force. 

My hands clenched into fists at my lap, the brief flash of his eyes upon them indicating my anger hadn’t gone undetected. I’m not sure what he expected me to say, but after giving me a second to reply, he kept on, undeterred by my silence.

“When the other nin realized what was happening, he pulled her to himself.” He quietened for a second. “Maybe he thought I had enough control to stop the stone and save his own life, I don’t know.”

“You’re a ninja. You should have known better.” My voice was both stony and bitterly childish, and for a moment I was taken aback by it. I had never spoken to anyone like that to anyone, and I wasn’t sure how I felt about doing so now.

His gaze lowered, filled with shame.

“I never made it past genin,” He grated out, the words sounding like glass coming out of his throat. “I left Iwagakure when I hadn’t yet unlocked my kekkei genkai. Never got much practice on the field beyond some D-ranked missions.” 

He made a low sound at the back of his throat, his sad smile suddenly fragile as he stared at his hands. With his shoulders slumped and the dark, piercing circles beneath his reddened eyes, he was the closest thing I had ever seen to a broken man. 

“It’s not quite the same, you see.”

I kept my eyes trained on the fire for a moment, mulling his words over and over inside my head. My rancour barely quenched down. 

“I can’t say I don’t feel strongly about you anymore.” I wasn’t sure how to put in words how I felt. “Sometimes…sometimes I can’t even stand to be  _ near _ you. You were the one who put her in that situation in the first place,  _ knowingly _ . You accepted that risk on her behalf.”

We remained quiet for a few seconds after that, my gaze shifting back to him after the hardest part had been said, some of the tension easing off my body. 

“But I’m not stupid or selfish enough to try to do anything to you, not when you could help put an end to all of this. To  _ war _ ,” I gestured around us with a hand, the word tasting nauseous and bitter in my mouth. 

Akane had told me that he would be an extremely valuable asset in battle, which was why he had been chased by so many hidden villages in an attempt to capture him and exploit his talents, which while strong, were untrained and unpredictable.

Even if I hadn’t known that, I wasn’t sure I could have harmed him after his confession. Anyone could argue he could have been lying, that people’s words shouldn’t be trusted, but deep down, and as much as it hurt, I  _ knew _ . That silence before everything had gone to hell, as if he had been deeply hesitant to use his powers, that gentle kiss he had placed upon Ran’s lips before we left.

He loved her. 

His eyes shone with understanding as he gave me a slow nod, perhaps realizing as well that words were insufficient in this matter. All that needed to be spoken had already been said. 

_ Yeah _ , I thought, _ maybe love isn’t much help against hardships when it seems to be a hardship on itself. _

That night, I closed my eyes to find myself back into the now familiar darkness of that lagoon. The eerie silence not doing much to scare me anymore after what had happened today. The motionless extension of dark water that had once seemed so eerie now almost filling me with calm. It was nice to have a quiet moment to myself after so long.

It took a few seconds for two amber orbs to appear in the midst of the depths, inching closer and closer as time passed, gazing right through my very soul as that enormous head broke through the water without making a single sound, towering menacingly above me.

“Why did you help me back there?” I asked, cutting straight to the chase.

She fixed her slit pupils on me, bifid tongue slipping out for a second as if tasting the air.

“I think it would have been pretty detrimental for my situation if my host died, human.”

“Host?”

Her enormous form halted its movements, her head tilting slightly at me in what could only be translated to incredulity.

“You don’t think I’m some fragment of your imagination, do you?” Her tone told me there would be very physical, very immediate consequences to my answer should she not like it.

I shook my head, hoping I didn’t get abruptly woken up again by a pair of sharp fangs inches from my face.

“No. You’ve always felt…too real, I guess?” I replied, wincing a bit at the doubt in my own voice. She had appeared on my mind shortly after my father found me, a few weeks after my mother’s passing, taking me with him under the promise of an education and a new life. It was needless to say I never felt very comfortable sharing her existence with anyone beyond myself.

She let out a seething sound that could have been a laugh or a bark.

“You’re such a weakling. Of course I’m real.”

“I don’t know if that brings me any comfort.”

She let out a sound that rang to me as a laugh.

We remained in silence for a few seconds after that, not completely comfortable, yet not as awkward as it had been once. It was perhaps the sudden openness around her, like she had let her guard down for a moment, that gave me the courage to do something that had been rounding my mind.

“Since it seems that we are stuck with each other for life... I think we should introduce ourselves properly.” I took a deep breath. “I’m Mitsuko, and you?”

Her amber irises stared at me long enough for my stomach to churn. Still, I did not look away, for something told me that was exactly what she expected me to do.

“My name hasn’t been uttered in centuries. “ She hummed, seeming deep in thought before sharpening her eyes on me, saying with the most regal voice I had ever heard on her: “My name is Kuro, and I am one of the last Yokai.”


	8. Konoha

The next morning Akane sent me an appraising look that left no doubt she had heard every bit of my conversation with Jūrō, making me squirm uncomfortably under her scrutiny, which I couldn’t help but feel annoyed by. 

After my conversation with Kuro last night, my sleep had been troubled and restless. She had refused to answer any further questions, plunging back into the obsidian depths of the calm lake where she lived, not bulging an inch despite my pestering insistence. 

One would think that no one had more of a right to know how she had ended inside my head than me. Still, she seemed to feel differently. 

We walked quietly for some time, immersed in our thoughts, too cold and tense from the cold snow that had begun to sizzle around us to attempt any kind of conversation, until Akane chose to cut through the silence, as tactful as a knife. 

“You do realize that’s not a common thing for someone without any training but the basics, right, kid?” She said without turning her head to me, her sharp gaze focused in front of us, as if able to see beyond the moist bark and whitened leaves into what laid miles ahead.

I quickened my steps so we were side by side, my old boots struggling to thread through the thick snow and mud forming beneath it as easily as hers, already slightly damp from molten snow seeping through the leather.

“What thing?” 

“Your sensing, obviously.”

“What about it?” I asked, making my way grumpily through the mud. “It wasn’t all that good, as you noticed.”

My mood did nothing but sour at her completely irritated yet amused expression, her eyebrows raised as she turned to Jūrō with a mocking smirk. 

“Adorable. She’s just adorable.”

Jūrō, who looked like he was walking right into his own funeral, said nothing, gazing at me in a way that said he clearly did not share the sentiment. 

“What I mean, brat—” Akane continued, seeming to muster all the patience she had within herself, “—is that not everyone can sense others' chakra signatures as easily. If you trained enough, you could learn to sense anyone before even laying eyes on them, or change your chakra signature.”

She let the magnitude of the possibilities sink in for a moment, and I thought back to how I sensed the chakra back in the pleasure house and was able to pinpoint it to Ran’s chambers, just by following that unsettling invisible thread pulling at the pit of my stomach. 

“My theory—” Akane spoke, drawing me out of my thoughts, “—is that you’ve been on the lookout for so long that it has become nearly a second nature to you. This obviously happened because you already had a disposition for it, though.” 

She gave me a calculated look, slowing her step just a bit, and I just knew her following question was meant to be anything but casual.

“Was any of your parents a shinobi?”

It took everything in me not to stumble, the inquiry nearly making my breath hitch. Even Jūrō seemed to wince beside me at her complete lack of tact, and yet, a part of me thought that I should have seen it coming.

Doing my best to appear unaffected, I settled for an ambiguous truth. I wasn’t naive enough to believe I could fool her, or attempt to do so without facing the consequences.

“My father was a ninja.”

“What happened to him?” Akane asked, and even if we weren’t facing each other, I could feel her eyes studying my profile.

I forced a shrug, swallowing past the sudden lump of nerves at the back of my throat.

“Don’t know. He left my mother when she was pregnant.”

There were no further questions after that, and I didn’t dare turn towards Akane in fear of my facade crumbling to shreds under her intimidating gaze. Still, I could almost hear the gears shifting inside her head.

It began to seem just as a matter of time before she saw right through my big farse. If only I had known how little that time would be.

  
  


That night, after we set camp — Jūrō had taken the task to teach me after our truce, and mostly I had let him —, Akane came to a decision, halting my meek attempt at contributing further by searching for suitable wood for fire around our camp —quite fruitlessly, might I say, considering the light snow that had been falling all day had left the bark of everything moist and soft.

“Come and sit, brat. We are going to practice that thing you do with your eyes,” she ushered me closer with a gesture of her hand, sitting on a log beside the fire.

My hand froze a few inches away from a stick.

“I already told you I have no control over it,” I tried, averting my gaze from hers. 

I wasn't sure why, but that golden tinge draped over the world and the reaction people had when it happened made me feel very wary. Not to mention I kind of felt enough of a freak already with the Yokai living rent free inside my head.

It was Akane’s uncanny silence that drove my eyes back to her, elbows resting against her knees, making her muscular arms stand out as she leaned closer, her features more somber than I had ever seen them, grey eyes studiously set on me, seizing, waiting.

I shifted my weight uncomfortably, my fingers tightening around the few sticks I had collected as I straightened my back. 

“Tell me something, kid. What do you think will happen with you once we arrive in Konoha?” She voiced the nagging question I had been putting off thinking about until now.

My feet moved almost on autopilot, taking me closer to the fire, until I was sitting beside her, eyes set on the swirling flames as I pondered, feeling her gaze on mine. It was almost surprising she didn’t pressure me to answer after a few seconds too long.

“I don’t know,” I replied sincerely, my voice trembling slightly at the end, much to my shame. 

“With some luck, you’ll be sent to the orphanage. But we know you’re too old, and the chances are slim,” she replied bluntly, yet something softened at the edge of her voice when I turned my eyes to hers.

“Then why are you taking me with you?” I finally asked.

“Because I saw something not even you see on yourself—” she replied quietly, her gaze boring into mine, eyes almost black against the dim light around us as she pressed a warm hand to my shoulder. “Potential.”

I swallowed, and my throat felt coated with broken glass. That single word hit me harder than expected, making fear and hope rise from the box I had long ago pushed them into at the back of my mind, the emotions after my father’s departure resurfacing.

_ Only fools and widows hope _ , my grandmother’s words echoed in my head.

“There’s a chance for you, kid. If you’re brave enough to take it. That thing you did with your eyes? I’ve never seen something like that from someone without the sharingan.”

“You... you really think so?” My voice sounded fragile and insecure to my own ears.

She nodded almost solemnly.

“Be a ninja of Konoha, Mitsuko.” 

“You may be disappointed,” I warned, but I could tell it was bound to fall in deaf ears. 

Akane snorted, not a single bit deterred, perhaps even more determined now that there was what appeared to be a challenge before her, lips curling into a smile that felt more unsettling than anything.

“We’ll see about that.”

There was a moment of silence where she seemed to weigh her next words, something that immediately sent a shiver down my spine.

“Besides, you remind me of someone. He used to be quite exceptional. Something tells me you could be even better.”

And just like that, hours of attempting to conjure that eerie heat into my gaze and sustain it for as long as I could began, probing Akane’s eyes until a slightly clouded expression crept into them and sweat pearled my skin despite the freezing weather around us. 

The next days went without much of an incident —thank Kami—, drifting through the snow-covered vegetation in a pace I could keep up to until Akane came to a halt, stopping us dead on our tracks.

My back went painfully stiff as I sent some chakra to my eardrums, stretching my hearing only to come out with nothing but the usual sounds of the forest, rustling of leaves and creatures slithering here and there, only relaxing when Akane turned to me, not a hint of alarm or unease in her posture, unceremonious as always. 

“We were saving our strength while we were in neutral territory. Now that we are nearing Kusa’s borders we will be going as fast as we can, and  _ you _ —” she gave me a pointed look, clearly sensing my imminent rebuttal.

My mouth snapped shut almost audibly. Was I that transparent?

“You will be true to your role as a pint-sized pain in my ass and ride on my back with no complaints, just like the first time.”

Her self-satisfied smirk told me that she had known exactly where my mind would go before she had even spoken. It had been humiliating enough to climb on her back like a baby after we fled the brothel, and it had just been an hour of it.

**Looks like you’re outnumbered, human. You’ll only slow them down.**

I sighed, forcing myself to send a tight nod in her direction.

“Sure.”

I wasn’t stupid. I knew that even if I had stood a chance to their speed and stability once, I was rusty, I had been months out of the game, and unless I wanted to snap my neck falling off a branch or become even more of a liability than I already was, I had to keep my mouth shut and do as I was told.

So, with all the dignity my scrawny twelve-year-old body could muster, I stepped towards her already crouching form, hands open and ready to grab onto my legs, and climbed onto her back, wrapping my arms loosely around her neck.

“Not so hard, was it?” She commented, sounding all friendly and understanding, but I could feel her torso rumbling with quiet laughter against my chest.

This was going to be a long day.

We arrived in Konoha with no incidents on our belts —thank Kami—, my pained muscles relaxing only when I saw the gates of the village open through the thick foliage before us.

I thought what was on the outskirts of Kusa was a forest, but I was wrong.  _ This  _ was a forest. Even in the midst of winter, it was thrumming with life, the snow that had clung to our backs like an unwelcome guest receding, whether because of the enormous tree tops above us or because of the warmer weather of the Land of Fire, I wasn’t sure. Animals moved through the bushes that seemed to be miles beneath us, birds chirping slightly through the darkness around us, seeming to wake on our trail.

I was only drawn out of my awe when Akane’s voice whispered my name, only loud enough for me to hear.

“Yes?” I asked.

“You will meet with the Hokage after Jūrō does,” she began in a tone so urgent I straightened my back, leaning closer to her. “If anyone asks you about your parents, let me answer for you, got it?”

My fingers dug against her shirt as a bad feeling crept over me.

“Why?”

She turned her head to me as if to say: ‘seriously?’

“I’m not stupid, kid. I know who your father is. It only took some questioning and a decent look at you. You look a lot like him when he was younger. Even your chakra feels similar.”

My heart skipped a beat at that last statement, and if I had been walking, I would have stumbled. 

“You knew Oro—”

She hushed me with a hiss.

“You will  _ never  _ use his name again if you know what’s good for you. I don’t think you realize the full extent of your father’s reputation, but let’s just say, it’s not a good one.”

“Why are you taking me in, then?” I asked quietly, softening my grip on her shoulders as the gates of Konoha drew closer.

“ _ Later _ . For now, do as I say.”

Akane’s fatigue became evident as we drifted to lower branches, her feet landing graciously once we were close enough to the ground, shoulders slumping beneath my arms as she eased her grip on my legs, placing me down and limping slightly as we neared the security stall outside the gates.

Anko had always talked about Konoha so marvelously, but I had to admit I couldn’t help but feel a bit disappointed at what I had seen until now. 

After we entered the village — being thoroughly searched first —, we didn’t have much time to look around. Akane was leading us pretty rushedly to what she called the Academy, where the Hokage’s office was located, a flank of other ninjas not far behind us.

So far, I found the village as bleak as all places had become ever since the war. Even if it seemed calm, or it was a sunny day, there was that aura of hopelessness and desolation surrounding everything. People's gazes were turned down, as if they couldn’t stand to look at anything but the ground beneath their feet, then shifting into distrust when their eyes happened to drift anywhere else.

Once we were outside the ominous doors of the Hokage’s office, Akane kneeled before me, her hands settling heavily against my shoulders.

“Wait here. Don’t do anything stupid.” 

And with that, she stood, her posture stable and proud as she gave Jūrō a subtle nod, their silhouettes disappearing before the now closed doors, leaving me behind. 

While I waited, I felt the distinct sensation of being watched, not daring to stretch my chakra to check for anyone in fear of it being taken as an offence, or worse, a menace. Instead, I tried to distract myself with the boring sight of the lobby around me. There was not much of anything, only chairs and a small table, a water dispenser sitting on the corner.

It was the pictures hanging from the walls what caught my attention, though. Groups of grinning children, proudly wearing their shining new hitai-ates, posing for the camera, some of them even younger than me. 

Were they graduates? It appeared so. I would have stood to inspect them closer, but the current situation made me feel tense enough to decide otherwise, remaining stiffly on my chair, wondering if I would be on one of those pictures one day.

After what felt like an eternity, Jūrō walked out of the room, accompanied by two masked…men? 

It was hard to determine their gender with their black clothing and flak jackets, threatening metal guards and gloves reflecting the dim light of the corridor, their animal masks awakening an eerie feeling wherever they turned to, eyes dimly gleaming beneath the darkness of the porcelain.

My eyes were only torn away from them when Akane stepped out, motioning for me to follow her with a gesture of her hand.

“Don’t say anything unless they talk to you directly,” she warned in a hiss, her voice deathly serious. 

I gave her a tense nod, forcing my feet to move evenly at her side.

**This is such a déjà vu** , Kuro commented, sounding almost entertained.

I couldn’t agree more.

And just like that, Akane opened the doors to the room where my future would be discussed as a transitory issue rather than the difference between my life and death.

Oh well, what was new about that?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sooooo, it's been some time. Hate it? Love it? Let me know!


End file.
